Currently Charles P. Stevenson, Jr. Professor of Languages & Literature at New York's Bard College, Chinua Achebe is widely recognised as the father of the modern African novel.

Things Fall Apart, published in 1958 was his first book and it brought him instance recognition. The book have since sold over eight million copies and translated into 50 languages.

Achebe was born in Ogidi, Eastern Nigeria in 1930 to a devout Christian family. After primary school, he attended Government College, Umuahia, Nigeria. In 1948, he was admitted to Nigeria's first university, the University of Ibadan, to study medicine but after one year changed to English literature and History.

After university, he joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and it was while he was on a training course at the BBC in London, that the manuscript of "Things Fall Apart" came into the attention of a publisher.

In 1966 Nigeria suffered ethnic violence, and in 1967 civil war broke out, with the Ibos of the eastern region attempting to establish an independent Republic of Biafra.

During the three-year struggle Achebe sought to publicise the plight of his people. His collection of poems about the war, Beware, Soul Brother, was published in 1971, appearing in the United States as Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems.

After the Nigerian civil war, Achebe returned to Nigeria as an English professor at the University of Nigera, Nssuka.

He has since published several novels, short stories, poetries and essays; all to critical acclaim.

Achebe's favourite theme has always been his native Nigeria and the Ibo ethnic group of that country.

He has also lampooned Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" as reinforcing a racist view of Africa. He believes the book emphasised the continent's image as a place of negation that makes "Europe's spiritual grace manifest."

"The whole purpose of African literature in my view is to change the perception of the world as far as Africans are concerned," he said. "So I have been very busy spreading that good news, that Africans are people, that we are not savages and cannibals."

He is a United Nations's Special Ambassador and he is widely sought after in literary circles around the world.

Achebe has received more than twenty honorary doctorates and several international literary prizes. He is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.